My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.Because you have rejected knowledge,I also will reject you from being My priest.Since you have forgotten the law of your God,I also will forget your children.

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness;I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season.But they came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to shame,And they became as detestable as that which they loved.

“For their mother has played the harlot;She who conceived them has acted shamefully.For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,Who give me my bread and my water,My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

Though he flourishes among the reeds,An east wind will come,The wind of the Lord coming up from the wilderness;And his fountain will become dryAnd his spring will be dried up;It will plunder his treasury of every precious article.

They offer sacrifices on the tops of the mountainsAnd burn incense on the hills,Under oak, poplar and terebinth,Because their shade is pleasant.Therefore your daughters play the harlotAnd your brides commit adultery.

“She will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them;And she will seek them, but will not find them.Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my first husband,For it was better for me then than now!’

I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlotOr your brides when they commit adultery,For the men themselves go apart with harlotsAnd offer sacrifices with temple prostitutes;So the people without understanding are ruined.

“I will sow her for Myself in the land.I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion,And I will say to those who were not My people,‘You are My people!’And they will say, ‘You are my God!’”

“In that day I will also make a covenant for themWith the beasts of the field,The birds of the skyAnd the creeping things of the ground.And I will abolish the bow, the sword and war from the land,And will make them lie down in safety.

The days of punishment have come,The days of retribution have come;Let Israel know this!The prophet is a fool,The inspired man is demented,Because of the grossness of your iniquity,And because your hostility is so great.

Yet the number of the sons of IsraelWill be like the sand of the sea,Which cannot be measured or numbered;And in the placeWhere it is said to them,“You are not My people,”It will be said to them,“You are the sons of the living God.”

They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the Lord,Their sacrifices will not please Him.Their bread will be like mourners’ bread;All who eat of it will be defiled,For their bread will be for themselves alone;It will not enter the house of the Lord.

And now they sin more and more,And make for themselves molten images,Idols skillfully made from their silver,All of them the work of craftsmen.They say of them, “Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!”